


Chaos

by loveknowsnoboundaries



Category: One Direction
Genre: COD!Louis, M/M, he also suffers from a mild form of schizophrenia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:28:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveknowsnoboundaries/pseuds/loveknowsnoboundaries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis hates the mess, Louis hates chaos, Louis hates when things aren't put in the right place. Harry's quite messy, Harry leaves some sort of neat chaos behind him, Harry never puts his coloured pencils in the right order.<br/>Louis loves him all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why nor how I came up with this but here it goes! I'd dedicate this to a friend of mine who helped me with developing its plot.   
> Hope you'll enjoy! xx

Psychopaths, sociopaths, most of the times are our neighbours. Sometimes they work at the local cafe, sometimes they are television technicians. Just like Louis was.  
Harry’s television clearly wasn’t cooperating that day, he was alone at home since Niall, his flatmate, had decided to spend the night at some girl’s he’d known at some pub downtown; so the only way he had left to spend his spare time was watching crap television.

“Damn,” He huffed, throwing the remote on the small sofa. “why today? Okay.” He looked for a television technician’s number through his phone’s contacts and, when he found it (he remembered he had one registered because the only television he could afford was a rather old one and it stopped working every now and then), didn’t waste time in dialling it.

Louis’ phone rang. He let it ring three times before picking the call up. “Hello, how may I help you?” The voice he heard speaking from the other side of the phone was a deep, languid one and Louis was suddenly captivated.

“Thank God, hello, my TV stopped working and it won’t turn on anymore, I was wondering if you could send someone here to fix it as soon as possible, please?” Harry crossed his fingers because he really didn’t want to spend the whole night alone at home without nothing to do.

Louis usually liquidates the kind of customers Harry sounded like with a quick ‘Of course, sir, I’ll send someone there, they’ll be there in about ten minutes’, but this time it was different. Louis hardly ever got out of his house, and when he did, it was just because of his job or because he’d ran out of his favourite food: Smith’s bacon flavoured chips, which besides being his favourite food, was the only thing Louis ate.

“Of course, sir. I’ll be there in about five minutes. If you could, please, give me your address?”

                                                                       *****

Louis was a very tidy person. Also a very organised one, everything had to be scheduled and if something didn’t go as it was planned to, that would have driven Louis insane. Doctor called it Compulsive Obsessive Disorder, or commonly, COD, Louis simply called it ‘hating to see things thrown on an unmade bed surrounded by dust and dirt’.  
But thanks to his COD, Louis did his job perfectly, considering that he was extremely quick and incredibly neat. Giving an example, Louis had placed hidden cameras all around Harry’s house in about twenty minutes, and connected them all to a device which was in turn connected to Louis’ computers at home. And the tall, curly haired boy was completely unaware of what Louis did.

The fact was that Louis truly believed that boy had to be his.  
So, there he was, sitting on his chair, a packet of Smith’s bacon flavoured chips open in between his crossed legs, as he looked at the multiple screens fixed to the wall of his ‘secret room’: they all showed Harry, who was talking on his phone and walking all around his house. Louis wasn’t obsessed. He was just curious.

                                                                        ***

“Louis? Can I come in?”

Liam was Louis’ only friend, and also his best one. He always came to visit Louis at 8 p.m. every day, and he stayed until 8.30 p.m..

“Liam! Yes, yes, come in.” Louis quickly replied, shutting all the screens off and locking the room’s door before walking into his house’s small living room. “Hi.”

Liam was a tall, good-looking, friendly boy, and he was the only person who wasn’t scared by Louis’ sudden mood changes. Even his mother was, so Louis was so grateful Liam would’ve always stayed and even tried to calm him down.

“Hi,” Liam smiled, before hugging Louis tightly ( _just for six seconds. Louis counted everything_ ) and enjoyed it as much as he could, since Louis allowed Liam to hug him just once. “how have you been?”

“Good, as usual.” Louis said, eating his chips. “What about you?” Their conversations always started like this, then they’d talk about nothing and anything, and after that, Liam would leave.

“I have had a tough period with, you know, all the exams at Uni and such, but now I can relax a bit.” Louis nodded, and got up to throw in the rubbish bin the empty packet of chips. “Have you been eating something more than just your crisps, lately, Lou?”

“Why would I want to eat something more-”

“Well, maybe because you’re getting so thin that I can even see your spine from under your t-shirt. What about ordering a pizza? Just for tonight. I’ll leave at 8.30 p.m., as usual, we don’t have to eat together, I-”

“Thank you, but no, thank you.” Louis replied, denying Liam’s offer in the most polite way he knew. Then he got on his tiptoes and grabbed another packet of chips, then walked over Liam again. “I’m fine.”

Liam sighed, knowing that trying to change Louis’ mind was something incredibly hard. “Have you talked to your Mom since you left?” Louis shook his head. “Are you planning in doing it any sooner? I bet she’s really worried.”

“Liam, I scare her, she told me the day when I left, three months ago,” Louis said, sitting on his armchair. “she’s not worrying about me at all, guaranteed.”

“Bullshits, c’mon,” Liam said, as Louis walked in the kitchen and grabbed two glasses of water, and handed one to Liam. “you should phone her.”

Talking about that made no sense, in Louis’ mind. 8.13 p.m..

“And what should I tell her?”

“That you’re doing fine, that you’ve found a good job and that you have no economical problems. That’s what you always tell me, at least.”

“She’ll keep thinking that I’m a monster.”

“Louis,” Liam said, scooting over Louis. “she probably even forgot what happened four years ago, you were seventeen and didn’t know how to control... _yourself._ ”

“I broke my little sister’s arm.” Louis replied, his voice was flat and its tone showed no trace of emotion. “I can’t even remember why.” Louis hated lying, but he just hoped that Liam would’ve stopped that conversation sooner.

“That’s it, Lou. You can’t remember it because it happened too long ago, Jay misses you so bad.” Liam said. 8.28 p.m..

“Liam, I think you should go.” The taller boy turned to the clock that was fixed to one of the white walls of Louis’ living room and checked the time, then nodded.

“Take care of yourself, alright?” Louis nodded as he accompanied Liam to the main door. “See you tomorrow, Lou. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

                                                                       ***

Louis had his whole life perfectly scheduled: he’d wake up at six a.m., shower and have breakfast at 6.13 a.m.. Then he’d start tidying the house, he’d made his bed and clean the shelves from every trace of dust, after he’d go to work, hear people call for extremely stupid problems he could have solved in the blink of an eye.

But now, he had something way more interesting in his life: and it was Harry. Harry who lived with an Irish, bleached blonde, extremely messy and loud boy called Niall, Harry who studied Art at University, Harry who always got home at 2.18 p.m. and spent half of his afternoons studying for some important exam, Harry who had any boyfriends or girlfriends at that time, and Louis really enjoyed that because Harry had to be his, and only his.

“ _Niall!_ ” Harry yelled, the metallic sound of his voice reaching Louis’ ears (he’d placed some microphones in the house because, maybe, he was a little obsessed with Harry’s voice) through his earphones. “ _It’s your turn to cook, tonight._ ”

Louis knew Niall was going clubbing that night; it was a hot Saturday night in June, and Louis learnt that Niall went out clubbing every Saturday night (because Niall didn’t go to University so he hadn’t got many things to worry about as Harry did).

“ _Sorry man, I’m going out with Ed and some girls tonight! Guess you gotta eat the leftovers._ ” Louis didn’t like Niall at all, and didn’t like the fact that he and Harry got on that well.   
Hearing his friend’s reply, Harry huffed out a laugh and yelled out a ‘Fuck you’, to which Niall replied with a loud laugh. Louis heard the door closing and checked that every room of the house was empty, besides the living room, which was occupied by Harry.

Louis had always kept all his things in perfect order, even when he was little and went to school: his coloured pencils were positioned in his pencil case according to the colours’ graduation scale: red – orange – yellow – emerald green – grass green – green – blue – cobalt – aqua blue – purple – magenta – pink – black – grey – white, and absolutely no one had to change that order; even his pencils were put in order according to their hardness scale: 3H – H – HB – 6B; and also his pens, obviously: the red one, the blue one, and the black one. Louis never let anyone touch his pencil case because he was afraid some of his classmates would take one of his pencils, and if they didn’t know in what order to put them back, Louis would’ve gone mad.

On the other side, we had Harry. Harry wasn’t messy, or better, he wasn’t _as messy as Niall_ , he just thought that he didn’t need to keep his things in order if he knew exactly where to find them. And that was one of the few things about Harry that angered Louis, he’d crumple his chips under his fingers whenever Harry would pull out his large pencil case from his backpack, open it and let Louis see all the mess that was in there (actually, Harry wasn’t letting Louis supervise every second of his life _purposely_ ). It was because of Harry’s messy pencil case that Louis had crumpled his chips and now he couldn’t eat them anymore (Louis only ate chips if they weren’t crumpled).

“I can’t believe he puts the emerald green in between the black and the magenta. It’s not supposed to be put there.” Louis angrily whispers to himself, watching as Harry starts colouring a draw he can’t see very well. The phone was ringing, and it rang for seven times before stopping. Louis never let the phone ring seven times because he didn’t like the number seven at all; but he liked the number three, so he always did things three times, and let the phone ring three times, too: when it rang four times, Louis couldn’t pick the call up anymore.

As soon as Louis’ phone stopped ringing, Harry’s one started to:  the boy left the pencils on the small, wooden table and ran to the phone, picked up the call, and Louis set the volume of his earphones as high as he could.

“ _Nick! Hey, I’m good, I’m good, what about you? Hmm. I’m free, yeah, Niall’s out so I don’t have any plans for tonight. What- oh, cinema. Amazing, see you there. Bye Nick!”_

Louis had to know who this Nick was. Louis had to know why Harry suddenly looked so happy. Louis had to know why this Nick invited him to go to the cinema and why he didn’t do that when Harry called him to fix his television. Why couldn’t Louis call Harry to hang out together why was Louis stuck in his home twenty four hours on twenty four a week why was Louis that alone  
( _breathe)  
_ Why even his mother hated him why was he different he didn’t even know what his ‘being different’ meant because every single person is different from another one why he and Harry were so different why didn’t Harry think about him every day just like Louis did  
_(over thinking alert stop screaming out loud stop stop stop stop screaming Louis stop screaming)_

Louis covered his ears with his hands, his eyes were closed and his mouth still open. Louis felt like he’d just had an awful nightmare. He hugged his knees and started rocking back and forth while shaking his head and whispering small ‘no’s.   
He breathed in deeply, the advice his mother gave him when he was little and had the same crisis, now felt a bit more useful. Breathe in, breathe out. Louis calmed down.

He sat on his chair again, Harry was now looking at his reflection in a small mirror, and Louis believed he looked really good. Harry was beautiful, clad in a pair of extra tight skinny jeans, a see-through shirt, of which Harry buttoned just the first three buttons, and which had a weird pattern, that portrayed some flamingos. Louis liked the way Harry dressed.

“ _Okay, okay, okay. Am I talking to myself? I’m fine, it’s just a night out with Nick._ ”

Louis felt nauseated all of a sudden, and checked the time to distract himself: it was 11 p.m., Louis usually went to bed when it was 11 p.m., but now he decided he’d wait for Harry to leave before going to bed.

                                                                        ***

“Wow, you have some awfully deep, black circles around your eyes, Lou.” Liam said, grazing Louis’ skin with index finger,right under his left eye.

“I’m okay.”

“You always are,” Liam replied, frowning. Louis was nervously biting his nails, and one of them started bleeding. “what’s wrong?” Louis shook his head as he kept biting on his nails, before Liam grabbed his wrists and pulled Louis’ hands away from his mouth. “Tell me what’s wrong, please, Louis.”

Louis looked over his shoulder towards his secret room’s door, then looked back at Liam. “I can’t sleep.”

“Is it just insomnia or is there something else you might want to talk about?”

_There’s a lot to say but I don’t want to talk about it I can’t talk about it._ “I don’t know, I take my pills regularly as always, and I never had troubles sleeping.”

“When did you last sleep for- for the whole night, I mean.” Liam asked.

“Four days ago.”

“What?”

“Four days ago-”

“I heard you, Louis. Four days without sleeping?” Liam was shocked, Louis was just tired but he couldn’t sleep when his mind was constantly turned to Harry, what was Harry doing, what had Harry done at University, what Harry’ll be doing when he’d get back home. Harry, Harry, Harry. Louis’ head started aching and he felt his temples pulsating madly.

“Four days and eight hours, up to now.” Louis said, massaging his temples. Liam huffed and headed into the kitchen, reaching up to the cupboard in which Louis kept all his medicines, which were divided according to what order Louis had to take them.

“Don’t you have a simple aspirin?” Liam asked, and Louis jumped on his feet and walked over Liam, grabbing the packet of aspirins Louis kept on the third shelf from the bottom. He got a glass of water and let the aspirin dissolve into the water, before drinking it. “You can’t keep going on like this, Louis. You need to eat, sleep, and get out of here, sometimes. I can help you, you can stay at mine for a while-”

“Liam, I can’t. You know I can’t.” Louis replied, calmly. Liam nodded because he either knew that Louis couldn’t leave his house, his job and his ‘routine’ that easily.  
Or better, Louis couldn’t leave at all, if he didn’t want to have a mental breakdown as soon as he’d put his feet on the concrete outside his house. “But thank you, indeed.”

“I’ll manage to get you out of here, somehow.” Louis smiled a weak smile, and shook his head.

“No, you won’t.”

                                                                      ***

It was 6.08 a.m. and Louis realised he’d spent the umpteenth night fully awake spying his neighbour. _Insomnia,_ Louis repeated to himself. _It’s just insomnia, that’s all._  
Harry had just woke up, he was stretching his limbs and yawning, still sleep drunk. His hair was a messy cloud on his head, so he quickly brushed it and bint it in a bun; Louis loved Harry’s hair, even though it was, maybe, a bit too long for a boy. But Harry didn’t care, so not even Louis did.

The curly haired boy got up from the sofa he sat on, leaving his  cup of tea on the small table in front of him, on which he left his coloured pencils and his drawing from the night before. When Nick had invited him out.  
Louis shook his head and the thought of Harry and Nick suddenly disappeared.   
He followed Harry with his gaze, and looked at the screen which showed Harry and Niall’s small bathroom: Harry turned the shower’s spry on and got undressed as he waited for the water to heat up to the perfect temperature; Louis’ face went on fire as he admired Harry’s fit, tan, inked body: he spotted various tattoos, such as a ship, a huge moth inked on his abdomen, a pair of sparrows, and what seemed to be a pair of branches, inked along his V-line.

Louis’s eyes never left the screen. Harry got into the shower, and Louis complimented to himself for having placed the hidden cameras that well: he could see Harry running his large hands through his wet hair, the droplets falling on his chest and his broad shoulders, and even though Louis thought that what he was doing was _extremely wrong_ , he let his right hand slide into his jumpsuit’s trousers and started palming himself through his boxers.

Harry sat in his shower, his long legs bent up to his chest, his back resting against the porcelain wall of the loo, while Louis sat on his chair, his gaze locked on Harry and his hand slowly sliding into his boxers; he shivered when his cold fingertips grazed the tip of dick, yet he kept touching himself, because the view of Harry’s naked, perfect body was something way too beautiful and Louis just couldn’t stop himself.   
He let out some small ‘ah’s as he now speeded up his hand’s pace, Harry was getting out of the shower (it was 6.57 a.m., but Louis didn’t know because he was busy with something else) and Louis thought that he’d came right there in his hand.   
Harry didn’t bother wrapping a towel around his waist, and Louis was so, so glad he didn’t; he imagined what it would’ve felt like to be in the same bed as Harry, both naked and flush against one another, Harry’s hands kneading his cheeks apart, his longs fingers grazing his hole, while Louis would be sucking hickeys on his neck and chest, his fingers torturing Harry’s nipples, he wondered what Harry’s moans sounded like, he had a really deep voice and Louis wanted to hear it when he moaned, next to his orgasm, his back arched far from the mattress-

“Fuck- fuckfuckfuckfuck-” Louis was panting, his hand still in his boxers while he rested his head on his desk, his eyes closed as he hoped that the image of Harry naked in his bed would’ve never disappeared. Louis groaned, kicking away both pyjama pants and boxers, picked them up from the floor and threw it in the dirty laundry bin.   
He washed his hands three times before drying them, got completely undressed and took a quick shower; after having wrapped a towel around his waist, he switched the bathroom’s lights off and on three times before exiting the room.

Louis sat again in front of the screens, Harry was getting ready for University and stood in front of his wardrobe choosing what to wear; Niall was still fast asleep, Louis knew he got back home at 5.36 a.m. because he was still awake watching Harry while he slept (Harry was incredibly beautiful even when he was asleep, Louis decided).  
Harry scribbled something on a block-notes and left it besides Niall’s bed, and then he left. Louis shut the screens off, ran to the window in the living room and opened it, watching as Harry got out of his house and started walking to the bus stop. Louis couldn’t clearly see him because the bus stop was quite far from their houses, yet he could still recognise Harry’s slim silhouette from that far.

Louis wasn’t obsessed. Being obsessed was something a lot different from what Louis was. Louis just wanted to have Harry all for himself but he was too shy. He wasn’t obsessed.

                                                                            ***

“So?”

“What?”

“You got anything to tell me?” Liam asked, uncapping a cold beer he took from Louis’ fridge. Louis kept chewing his chips.

Louis knew he couldn’t lie anymore. Or better, he had to, but he felt extremely guilty whenever Liam would leave without knowing what haunted Louis to the point that he couldn’t sleep for more than half a hour a night. “I knew a boy.”

“How? I mean, no offense,” Liam said, rising his hands in front of him; Louis shook his head and smiled. “but how did you meet a boy?”

“He called me a couple of weeks ago because his TV stopped working.”

“And- and you told him that you, I don’t know, you liked him-”

“C’mon, Liam. I met him, I fixed his TV and left. You know I don’t talk to people if I’ve never met them before.”

Liam put the empty beer bottle on the living room’s floor, Louis got up and went throwing it in the garbage bin, then walked back into the living room and sat on his armchair, looking at Liam dead in his eyes. “Where does he live?” Liam asked. Louis pointed behind his back  and Liam arched an eyebrow. “In your room.”

“God, no. Liam, he exists, I promise. I’m not schizophrenic yet.”  
_(you know too well you are you can’t lie to yourself Louis c’mon)_

“Are you okay?” Liam said, following Louis to the window in his room that gave onto Harry and Niall’s house.

“Yes. He lives there.” Louis explained.

“He lives less than two inches far from where you live, and you never talked to him before?”

“I’m not a very friendly person, Liam, I thought you already knew.”

“I thought that the fact that you like him was helping you with, you know, opening to people.” Liam said, shrugging as Louis shook his head no.

He didn’t like people.   
He just liked Harry.  
Harry wasn’t like other people.

                                                                     ***

Louis had gotten used to Niall taking home his girls or his – too – loud friends seven nights on seven, but Harry never brought someone home and when Nick stepped inside his house for the first time, Louis was so shocked and angry that he broke two chairs, a couple of paintings and an entire set of dishes.  
Louis wasn’t obsessed, nor possessive towards Harry, he just thought Harry deserved someone better than Nick  
_(just like you, uh? you’re not better than him he’s better than you everyone is)_  
and even though he knew he could’ve been a thousand times better than Nick, he knew he had no chance to show it off.

“ _I’m sorry, it’s a bit messy but I don’t have time to- you know, all the exams and stuff-_ ”

“ _It’s okay. I like it here, feels cosy._ ”

Louis utterly hated Nick’s voice, he hated the way he wandered around Harry’s house, the way he touched his things, his drawings, the drawings Louis loved the most couldn’t be touched by someone that wasn’t Harry. _His_ Harry.

They spent the night talking to each other, Louis lowered the earphones’ volume when Nick was talking and turned it on again when he’d see Harry’s lips moving. They talked about Nick’s job as a radio host and about Harry’s studies at University, about how Harry listened to Nick’s programme every day and about how Nick would’ve loved to take Harry out for lunch, that Thursday.   
Louis didn’t realise he was holding the mouse so tight that his knuckles had become white and they even started to hurt.

Louis thought that Nick wasn’t going to spend the night at Harry’s, but he did. They watched a film until Harry fell asleep, his head resting on Nick’s shoulder; Louis started biting his nails nervously, to the point that they started bleeding.

“ _Shall we go to bed?_ ” Nick asked, and Harry giggled before nodding. Louis loved when Harry giggled, but hated the reason of his giggle.

“ _Definitely. Are you staying?_ ”

Louis hated rhetorical questions. Especially if their answer had to be ‘yes’.

“ _Of cour-_ ”

Louis shut the screens off, threw away his earphones and brought his hands to his head and started tugging on his own hair to prevent himself from punching all the screens until they’d go on fire. He was hurting himself and the corner of his eyes seemed to burn as tears started to form. He couldn’t cry, he wasn’t going to cry.  
Breathe in, breathe out.

Louis got in his bed, pulled the sheets up until they even covered his head and brought his hands to his ears, covering them; he had his eyes shut closed, his knees pulled up to his chest and he could feel his heart thumping loudly against it. The headache was killing him, and he felt so weak that he couldn’t even get up to get an aspirin; it’d been about ten days since he last took his pills, he didn’t care if panic attacks happened more often, or if he couldn’t control his anxiety anymore, all he cared about lately, was Harry.

Harry was slowly taking Louis’ life downhill and Louis enjoyed it.

                                                                            ***

Liam decided he was doing it for Louis’ own sake. He thought that best friends did help each other when needed, and talking to Harry was one of the ways to help Louis out.   
He knocked at Harry’s house’s door and waited, unaware of the fact that Louis, from inside his secret room, could perfectly see what Liam was doing.

“Why is he there, why-why is he there, Liam what the fuck are you doing, no- no, no, no please, no-” Louis started hyperventilating, his hands flew up to his neck as he tried to breathe steadily again. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THERE!” Louis shouted, banging his fist on his desk. He got up and walked back and forth in front of the screens, which now showed Harry who was leading Liam into the small living room. Louis kicked his chair so hard that its backseat broke, falling on the hard ground.

“ _I hope I didn’t interrupt anything._ ” Louis heard Liam saying, as he noticed Harry’s draws on the coffee table in front of the small sofa, and his coloured pencils scattered all around it. Harry shook his head and smiled politely, before inviting Liam to take a seat. Liam and Harry started talking, Louis didn’t want to hear what they were saying so he put his earphones on his desk and locked his gaze on Harry’s lips and tried to read them: Louis had always been an excellent observer, and he could read lips quite good, too. Harry assured Liam that he’d do something that Liam asked him to do, and Louis absolutely wanted to know what was it about but he felt too betrayed by his best friend to even want to hear his voice.

Louis’ nails were scratching his neck’s skin so fiercely that they broke the skin there, which started bleeding a little; he hugged himself, as though he was trying to hold himself together and put his earphones back in as soon as he saw Liam leaving.  
Harry was humming a song Louis didn’t recognise, yet it had the strange power of calming him down, something that not even his mother managed to do when he had one of his awful panic attacks. Louis brought his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them, closing his eyes and unconsciously humming Harry’s same song, until he fell asleep right there.

                                                                 ***

“Louis?” Liam yelled, getting a little scared when he found Louis’ house’s door open. “Louis, are you there?”

Louis’ eyes snapped open as he heard Liam’s voice. He shut all the screens off and jumped off the chair, getting out of the room as fast as he could, without forgetting to lock it. “Hello.” Louis knew he had to behave as if nothing happened (but above all, he had to behave as if he didn’t see anything), but it was hard to when he perfectly knew what Liam did.

“God, you scared me,” Liam said, but Louis headed straight to his armchair and sat on it, a packet of Smith’s bacon flavoured chips in his hands. “Okay, what’s wrong with you today.”

“I don’t feel comfortable being in the same room as you.” Louis couldn’t lie.

“What?” Liam was shocked, as if he removed from his mind everything he did just ten hours before. “Louis, what even? What are you talking about?”

“I know what you did.” Louis replied flatly. Liam opened his mouth, which got the shape of a small ‘o’, then closed it again. “I saw you. Did you forget I ‘live less than two inches from his house’?”

“I did it for you. He said he’d love to meet you again and talk to you.”

“You know how stupid this sounds to me? A twenty-three years old’s friend goes to talk with the boy he fancies  
_(fancy isn’t the right verb. try with ‘with the boy he obsesses over twenty four hours on twenty four)  
_ SHUT UP!”

“I-I said nothing?” Liam’s eyes were wide open, he was looking at Louis with his arms stretched out in front of him, as if he wanted to protect himself from Louis, who now was nothing more than a quivering and shaking body curled up in a corner of the room. “Louis, Lou please, look at me.”

“No, no! Get your hands off me, don’t touch me.” Louis said, his feeble voice escaping his lips more like a whisper. “Don’t touch me.”

“When did you last take your pills?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. Don’t touch me, get away from me.” Louis murmured, tugging on his caramel brown locks.

“You’re hurting yourself, here,” Liam said, taking Louis hands and holding them in his own ones. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Louis laughed, a mix of slyness and anger was clearly audible. “you didn’t even ask me if it was okay to me. You just went there and- why did he even let you in? Why do you hate me this much, why can’t you just accept I am like this and your stupid attempts to change me are completely useless-”

“Nothing’s useless. You always told me the pills you take were useless, but they do work, don’t they? And you feel better now.” Liam said, firmly. Louis started scratching his arms and felt the skin burn under his fingers.

“Yes, of course I do.” Louis replied, and hoped that Liam caught the sarcasm.

“Let me help you.” Liam pleaded, and Louis rolled his eyes. “Just for this time, just for once, Louis. Let me in and let me help you.”

                                                                         ***

Liam had no idea that the fact that Harry would visit Louis every afternoon (from 7.15 p.m. to 7.45 p.m.) wasn’t helping Louis at all. Obviously he loved hearing Harry’s voice, now a lot more since he could hear it facing him, and not only via his earphones, but being in the same room with him made Louis feel extremely uncomfortable, because Harry didn’t know that Louis hated when people stood less than thirty centimetres away from him, that Louis hated when people touched his things without having washed their hands before, that Louis hated when people would leave their coats or jackets on the backseat of the sofa instead of hanging them to the coat rack. Harry didn’t realise he did all of those things because they were quite normal to him.

Louis breathed Harry’s scent as he guided him to the door; Harry greeted him and Louis loved hearing him speaking out his name. As soon as Harry left, Louis ran to his room and turned on the screens: Harry had just gotten into his house and Niall was waiting for him, sprawled on the sofa. Harry ruffled his hair and Niall swore, before asking Harry how it went with ‘the weirdo’. Louis assumed Niall was talking about him and felt his stomach clench.

“ _Don’t call him that, c’mon Niall,_ ” He heard Harry saying, and the weird sensation he was feeling suddenly disappeared. “ _He’s just got some different habits and... stuff like that, he’s cool though._ ”

“ _You got to be fucking kidding me._ ” Niall laughed, and a hot tear damped Louis’ left cheek. “ _Anyways, Nick phoned while you were away and he told me that he’s coming here tonight._ ”

“ _I know, Niall, I invited him._ ” Anger boiled inside Louis, hearing Harry talking about Nick upset him; Louis quickly wiped away the tears that kept falling from his eyes and focused on Harry’s figure in the screen that showed his kitchen. “ _Are you going to help me? Okay, I guess you’re not.”_

                                                                         ***

Harry and Nick spent the night together.  
And the following nights, too.

Liam had phoned Louis that afternoon but he didn’t answer the call, so he decided to go and check that everything was okay, that maybe Louis was showering and he didn’t hear the phone ringing.

“Louis?” Liam couldn’t hear the sound of the water spry, so he assumed Louis wasn’t under the shower. “Louis, are you there?”

It was 7.15 p.m., and Harry was right outside Louis’ house’s door and he was about to knock at it, when he realised it was already open and someone was inside. “Hello?”

“Who’s there?”

“I’m Harry, I was looking for Louis.” Liam walked out of the kitchen and reached Harry, he explained him that Louis was nowhere to be found and asked Harry to help him; the curly haired boy nodded and started looking for Louis in his house. “Have you already looked in here?”

Harry found Louis’ secret room, but Liam didn’t think of looking for him in there because Louis always told him that it was his wardrobe, and Liam couldn’t believe Louis was hiding in his wardrobe, no matter how strange Louis was.

“No, open it.” Liam said, but Harry shook his head.

“It’s locked from the inside.”

Liam started worrying. He took a few steps back, then ran towards the door and knocked it down. “What the actual fuck-”

“Wait, this is-” Harry’s jaw dropped as he walked over Louis’ desk, observing the screens still turned on. “this is my living room, and- and this is- oh my God.”

Liam slowly walked to what looked like a bathroom, on the other side of the room. Harry turned and ran to him when he heard his screams; what he saw made him feel sick: Louis had hanged himself to one of the wooden beam fixed to the ceiling. Liam found a small piece of paper forgotten on the sink next to Louis’s body.

“What is that?” Harry asked.

“There’s your name on it.”

When Louis’ mother, Johannah, knew that her son was found dead in his house, she felt relieved. She did cry not even a single tear, she simply told Louis’ sisters that their brother was dead, and they asked no questions.  
Liam was still shocked, and he’d have probably never forgot the image of Louis’ lifeless eyes that seemed to be staring at him.   
Harry didn’t know what to think. He’d discovered that Louis had been spying him since he’d called him to fix his TV, and he even went visiting him because he thought that Louis, who seemed so strange and different, might have been a nice person, instead.

                                                                         ***

_Harry,_

_You’re a complete disaster. You have all the bad habits a human can have, I hate when you leave your things on your table without putting them back in place. I hate when you get back home and you throw your jacket on the sofa instead of hanging it to the hanger. I hate when you eat and you leave your kitchen as a dirty mess, or when you leave all the plates on the table and you don’t wash them and put them in place._  
I hate that you let that worm into your house and that you let him keep all his bad habits even if he was in YOUR house and you HAD to force him changing them.  
Your life could’ve been a thousand times better, with me. I could’ve took care of you in the way you deserved, because you deserve all the best in this world.   
You were worth dying for.


End file.
